


Hostages to Fortune

by Jaelijn



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Gen, PWB, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, Pre-Way Back, Season/Series 01, but really only if you want it to be, lots of 'pre's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 06:01:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7088125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaelijn/pseuds/Jaelijn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having abandoned the failing Aquitar project, Kerr Avon ends up in tech support, of all places. The position is singularly uninspiring – until he receives an extraordinary late night caller.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hostages to Fortune

**Author's Note:**

> Alternatively titled: How Vila knew Avon before the _London_. This came out of looking at gifs of Avon's... hands-on approach to fixing things, and me chuckling at the thought of Avon having to work in IT tech support. So here we go.  
>  Oh, and I have this little headcanon that Avon was born on Io. Take a lucky guess why. ;)
> 
> If you're following my Ace!Avon [A Heart to Hold](http://archiveofourown.org/series/468178) series - this technically fits, but since this is at the most pre-slash and doesn't even mention sexualities, I didn't put it into the series. 
> 
> Enjoy!

It was undignified.

If he’d taken the position by choice, Kerr Avon might not have found it quite so insulting – at the very least, it gave him ample time to pursue his own interests – but to be re-allocated to a position in _tech support_ because his supervisor couldn’t bear not being the cleverest person in the room! Well, there had been nothing Avon could have done short of walking out, which would surely have been entered into his records. Avon had altered his records on the central security server before, to erase a minor miscarriage of justice from his youth that might have impacted his chances of employment, but he wasn’t keen on attempting the venture again. He had helped develop the far more advanced security system they now employed.

At any rate, Avon did not particularly regret having to abandon the Aquitar project – it was doomed to failure anyway. The basic idea was viable, and live matter transmission would be an incredible advance in science, but Aquitar was simply too volatile, and contact with the inherent instability of organic material destabilised it further. No amount of clever programming or technology would change that – which Avon had told his supervisor, in no uncertain terms. It was probably for the best that he would no longer be wasting his talents on that failure of a project.

Still, the appointment to _tech support_ , even if it was for one of the most prestigious computer science and technology institute in the known universe, rankled. At the very least, they had been kind enough to allocate the nightshift to him. Unsurprisingly, it reduced the number of calls by only a small margin: Enough customers still preferred personal service to filing reports, and the domes allowed for perpetual light. Since most owners of security systems as advanced as the ones _CIFeR_ supplied were Alpha grades with full power over their working schedule, they also didn’t hesitate to turn night to day if they so desired. Avon had less control over his working hours than he would have liked, but doubtless his chronic night-time insomnia had found a way into his employment file or medical charts, and his employers had thought it wise to allow for that. After all, at least the management was aware that _CIFeR_ couldn’t afford to lose his skill to the competition. The appointment to tech support was temporary, Avon was sure. In a few weeks, months at most, the Aquitar project would fail for good, just as he had predicted, and a new project would come along for which they would need him again.

Avon leant back idly in his chair, shifting his desk lamp to illuminate the computer board he was studying. It was nothing spectacular, just a little private research into Tariel cells. Ensor really was the foremost computer technician of his generation, and while Avon could understand and repair his work, replicating it was, as yet, an unattained goal. At least the darkened office, his the only light in a sea of dark desks, allowed him to work without feeling the constant presence of his coworkers, and to ignore the omnipresence of surveillance. _CIFeR_ couldn’t care less what he did during lulls in his working hours so long as it wasn’t illegal and he continued to answer the calls with efficiency and competence. Most problems were speedily dealt with by delegation – Avon wasn’t responsible for fixing broken hardware; there was an all-hours mobile service for that, and most calls could be patched straight through to their local branches. Many calls didn’t deal with faults at all but could be linked to the incompetence of the users – their _esteemed clientele_. Those, Avon _had_ to deal with, but often a simple reset would do the trick, and if it was a system that was centrally controlled, Avon could reset it with a few lines of code right from his desk. _After_ confirming the identity of the caller, of course. Calls rarely took more than a couple of minutes.

Avon reluctantly put his tools down to field two more calls that came in back to back – both irate homeowners who had managed to lock themselves out of their house and vault respectively. With the latter, Avon could hear the alarm blaring in the background of the communication link. He redirected that one as quickly as was still polite, and sneered at the communication bank before him. _Fools_ , all of them. What was the point of hoarding and acquiring wealth if one didn’t have the intelligence to put it to good use?

Coming to Earth to work had been a mistake, but Avon couldn’t have suffered the oppressive etiquette of Io for much longer and there really were no viable alternatives with his lack of funds. At least on Earth, he was valued _primarily_ for his skill, not his manners. One successful project, though, just enough to fill his accounts, and he would make his way out of the system, and finally, finally be free of the Federation’s stifling omnipresence.

Avon had scarcely picked up his probe again when the next call came in. Patience running thinner than usual, Avon switched it through to his headset, rattling down the company greeting line. “… and how can we help you tonight?” He was confident his sneer didn’t carry into his voice, and if the office surveillance picked it up – well, there were no rules against making faces at clientele that couldn’t see you.

“Oh. Hello.”

Avon immediately paused, carefully placing the probe and circuit board on the table. _Odd_. Not the distinctive high-end Alpha cadence he was so used to at all, no alarm booming in the background. The caller, doubtlessly male, didn’t even sound politely annoyed, more … surprised. “How may we help you at _CIFeR_ support?” Avon repeated again, wondering if, for once in his work here, there would be an interesting call, or whether he was about to be told that someone had accessed the wrong communication linkup.

“You’re not a robot, are you?” The caller made an effort to sound dignified, but he wasn’t quite succeeding.

_If you’re an Alpha I’ll eat my circuit board_ , Avon thought with wry humour, and leant back. “ _CIFeR_ believes in only providing the best support for its clientele”, he recited and added, “so no, I’m not a robot, or a computer. But I’m sure I’ll be able to help you with yours.”

“Oh,” the client said again, and there was a long pause.

_CIFeR_ also did not believe in rushing its customers, and so Avon waited, enjoying the quiet and the puzzle for as long as it lasted. He could hear the other breathing through the linkup.      

Then, a sharp intake of breath, and the caller said: “I have this security system.”

“So I had assumed.” Avon smirked, knowing that he was treading the thin line to impoliteness, but at least the caller wasn’t already annoyed. “What seems to be the problem?”

“I can’t get it shut off.”

Most _definitely_ not an Alpha, from his diction. A Beta at best – some Betas did have quite considerable wealth, and often very little concept of what it could be used for. They were a large part of _CIFeR_ ’s customers, but they were generally the “irate caller”-type Avon could send on to in-situ support. “Alright, that isn’t a problem. You don’t seem to have triggered the alarm yet.”

“I know that!” the caller snapped, sounding increasingly nervous. “Look, just tell me how and I leave you alone.”

_How refreshing_ , Avon thought. The esteemed clientele rarely apologised for bothering him. “Do you have the system’s serial code?”

A pause. “No. Where’d I find that?”

“It would have been in your file when you had the system installed. It won’t be written on the hardware.”

“Oh. No, don’t have it, then.”

“That won’t be a problem, but I’ll need you to narrow down the possibilities for me. Do you remember a version name?”

“What’s that when it’s at home?”

Avon took a sharp breath, wondering now if this was a prank call. Even with all of the Federation’s discipline, those hadn’t quite died out, but surely there were more interesting places to prank than the Federation’s foremost experts in security systems. “The name of your system, which should be visible if you access the technological specifics overview on your central computer network screen – do you have access to that?” Most clients didn’t, having locked themselves out of their living spaces, or at least out of the part with the sensitive systems and valuables, which, generally, included the central computer access.

“No,” came the immediate reply, sounding somewhere between exasperated and amused.

“Perhaps you can remember. It will be something like _CIFeR_ Esteem or _CIFeR_ Dignity followed by a series of numbers.” _CIFeR_ insisted on using ridiculous names for their systems, in the interest of “creating a memorable brand for our esteemed clientele” – in other words, so the morons could remember which system version they had installed. At least it wasn’t fruits, like at one of the competing businesses.

As if responding to Avon’s unspoken thought, the caller snorted. “Nice names, eh?”

“You don’t have that on hand either, I take it?” Avon asked. He was beginning to lose his patience with the man. Having a nice chat was all well and good, but there would soon be other calls waiting in line, and he hadn’t planned on spending the rest of the night trying to assist a single particularly dense customer, no matter how unusual. There was little he could do without knowing what system he was dealing with – whether it even was a _CIFeR_ system at all (not that that would have mattered to Avon, but he was only being paid to support _CIFeR_ systems) – and it wasn’t his job to go out into the field to find out. If the system didn’t have a central link-up…

“Sorry,” the caller said, a grin echoing in his voice. “Look, I… inherited this system from its former owner, you know? So unless I can get inside, I don’t have access to any of this information.” There was a slight pause, and a distant rattle. “It’s a door-locking mechanism. Quite fancy looking and all. I don’t see any link-ups to the computer system, so I think it’s just the standalone alarm. Isomorphic control, and voice link.” Something rustled, and the client’s voice, when he continued, was muffled, as though he were speaking around a tongue stuck between his teeth. “No Tariel support, I don’t think, but liquid crystal connections.”

Avon swallowed down his surprise. _Not_ an imbecile, then, and clearly someone who knew his way around computer systems – to give such a description, he must have unscrewed the key panel and be able to make sense of what he was seeing. “All right. Can you give me the colour of the connections on the left of the panel from the top down?”

“Uh, white, red… red, green.”

Avon hesitated for a moment, just to run over all the system specifics again in his mind. It wouldn’t do to make a mistake, but really, it could only be one system he knew of. “Very good, I think I know what you have… inherited. I can talk you through manually disarming the system if you have the necessary tools. Or I can send a local team along?”

“Eh? No, I’ll do it. ‘s just, it’s getting a bit late. Can we pick this back up again tomorrow? Do you always have nightshift?”

“Yes, I–” Avon did a double-take, startled at his own immediate response, and rephrased his answer. “You are free to call a member of daytime staff. They will be able to assist you without the waiting time.”

“No, I’ll be busy,” the client said smoothly – lying? “What’s your name?”

Avon didn’t like giving out his name to callers, but he was obligated to if asked, and so he just pulled a face, and gave his answer: “Kerr Avon.” He rarely had so singular a caller, much less one that insisted on being subjected to his caustic tones. They rather seemed to enrage a lot of the people he was forced to interact with. Under these circumstances, Avon found that he didn’t mind sharing his name as much as he’d expected.

“All right, Avon. Talk to you tomorrow.” And with that, the communication link went dead.

  

It would have been a lie to say that the caller had not somewhat slipped Avon’s mind by the time he finally stumbled back into his little apartment across town, the artificial sunrise already illuminating the plaza below. As well as the night shift suited him – after all, he had always preferred working in the evenings – the insomnia also left him feeling wrung out, and the dome waking up around him wasn’t the most pleasant to fall asleep to. Still, by around mid-morning, he had fallen into an uneasy slumber, and managed to stay asleep for four hours – a good day, for him. It was in the shower that the nightly riddle resurfaced in his mind. There was little he could tell about the client from just his voice – he had given no name, no address, and aside from the fact that he was not-an-Alpha dealing with an inherited security system, Avon knew nothing. While not to be expected, it was also prudent to assume that even that hadn’t been the whole truth. Doubtless, he would learn more if the caller kept true to his promise, but there was something else gnawing at Avon’s memory. _White red… red green_ , the client had said. Back in the night, Avon had assumed that the caller had repeated the _red_ simply because he had been gathering his thoughts, or perhaps shifting wires to see the final light. _White Red Green_ was the linkage coding for one of _CIFeR_ ’s most popular systems, and the Esteem fit the specifics the client had given him. It wasn’t particularly high-maintenance, and didn’t require central control to function, nor a computer linkup if the client so choose. Avon had been sure that was what he was dealing with, but now, rested and more awake than he had felt in the last week, he had his doubts. What if the caller had been wrong, and there was a linkup? What if the colour combination he had given hadn’t included any repetitions?

Intrigued, Avon settled down at his own computer terminal, set up a quick proxy and firewall to protect his identity, and hacked his way into _CIFeR_ ’s call log. Every vid or audiolink communication in the Federation was monitored, of course, but _CIFeR_ had struck a deal with the Federation for its services. It guaranteed to do its own monitoring as long as the Federation kept out of its business and supplied its employees with unrestricted computers. It had the effect of ensuring that knowledge of _CIFeR_ ’s projects and its security systems above all else remained within the company, which, naturally, was only in the Federation’s interest. If there was a security breach, _CIFeR_ employees were the first to come under suspicion, narrowing the field down considerably from the entire populace. Most of Avon’s co-workers were aware of and happy with that fact – unrestricted computer linkups had their advantages, provided you weren’t stupid enough to be _up to something_.

Avon had always despised any restriction on his activities – _CIFeR_ , having to cover far less people, had established a far tighter control in many areas than the Federation ever could, though they had lifted the restrictions on programming, hacking and network access. These, in their standard implementation, would have made it impossible for _CIFeR_ ’s employees to work, and would have posed a much bigger obstacle for Avon to overcome now. Still, Avon knew better than to let on that he was making requests from a _CiFeR_ machine, or to use his insider knowledge to crack the system, tempting as that was. No, if someone did discover him poking around in the call log, it would seem as though the request had come from an exterior system, a rival company, perhaps. Avon couldn’t quite hide that he knew what he was doing, but as long as he used skill alone and refrained from drawing on (faster, _easier_ ) insider workarounds, he would appear as a skilled security expert, perhaps, but not as an employee. And really, the tech support call logs weren’t exactly the most secure parts of the company’s system. They were unlikely to contain information that a rival company didn’t already have. _CIFeR_ ’s systems were everywhere, accessible to everyone with the right contacts or buyable with enough funds, and even Avon had taken apart his fair share even though he had no intention of ever working in on-site hardware support. Software was generally more his thing, casual interest aside.

The call log in question was easily found, and quickly played back. Avon listened for background sounds, wondering again at the mirth he could detect in the client’s tone… and there it was. _White red… red green._ Not a repetition. A pause, yes, and some rustling, but it didn’t sound anything like an absent-minded repetition. So it wasn’t an Esteem. Which left… Avon inhaled deeply. He wasn’t in the habit of helping people out of the goodness of his heart, and he certainly wasn’t in the habit of making other people rich at the risk of his own safety. And yet, this caller had to be the most interesting thing he had come across in a long while, utterly refreshing after the tedium of the failing Aquitar project and the mind-numbing boredom that was tech support duty. It wasn’t as though Avon was particularly enamoured with the law, himself. He had kept his record clear enough after that failure with Tynus – but that was when he had still thought the Aquitar project could work. That giving the Federation living matter transmission would be what would make him rich, and if the Federation didn’t, _someone_ would pay for it. But the project had failed, and Avon was very much tempted to take a shortcut. At the very least, he felt no interest in reporting this caller to the law enforcements.

He couldn’t erase the call log – that would be suspicious. However, even _CIFeR_ ’s systems weren’t safe from data rot. With a smirk, Avon set to work, and it was with high anticipation that he went into the office in the evening.

       

The first two hours of his shift progressed with the same tedious slowness he had become used to. He passed the time between calls on his terminal, doing some mindless programming – really, hiding the algorithm that would corrupt a random selection of call logs tonight, and would most certainly completely erase _the_ caller – if the man hadn’t changed his mind. He was probably a petty thief, from his manner – if, undoubtedly, a singularly skilled and audacious one. If he did not call again, Avon wouldn’t exactly be surprised – and would undoubtedly hear of the security breach by the time he had made it home, with the arrest already made. Without his help, the thief had no hope of succeeding, not with a _CIFeR_ Pride, and certainly not after he had already made a fatal misreading in missing the hidden computer linkup. Pride was the firm’s most expensive system, deceptively simple, but certainly its money worth. Only very high flyers in the Federation could even afford it; it was a long way above Avon’s paygrade. Not that Avon would have trusted his valuables to a serial security system, not even one as sophisticated and rare as Pride. Any system that wasn’t utterly unique was in that much more danger of being broken into.

Avon was still seething from a particular close-minded and very irate caller when _it_ came in – a long moment of silence after Avon’s standard greeting, and he _knew_. Giving the algorithm a quick check, he switched the call into his earpiece and settled back into the chair just as the caller gathered his breath.

“Hello, Avon”, there was a definite smile in his voice tonight, “told you I’d call you back, didn’t I?”

Avon allowed himself a smile of his own. It felt surprisingly _good_ to go behind the backs of _CIFeR_ and the Federation again, a thrill of freedom he hadn’t realised he missed quite so desperately. “Indeed. Well, now why don’t you tell me which _CIFeR_ Pride system you are trying to break into, so I can tell you what to watch out for?”

A gasp, a frantic rustling, but the connection didn’t cut off. When the man’s voice came again, it was a panicked, hushed whisper. “Do you think I’m stupid? You’re recording this! I inherited this system from an acquaintance.”

“Impossible. _CIFeR_ keeps very close taps on all owners of Pride, and none of them is recently deceased. And do you really imagine I would be so negligent as to wait for your call only to have it recorded and turn you in? If I wanted to do that, a security detail would have been waiting for you on arrival.”

“Perhaps they are! They’re just in the shadows, aren’t they? I surrender!”

Avon leant forward in his chair. “Fool! There is no one there, unless you continue drawing attention! I can talk you through cracking that system without leaving any trace you were even there. Do you want to do it or not?”

“And why should I trust you, eh?”

Avon sneered. “In your profession, I wouldn’t trust anyone. Consider this: you know my name. _If_ you were to get caught, I could do nothing to stop you from implicating me – especially as I have taken care that this and last night’s call aren’t saved as clear records, and suspicion of foul play would immediately fall back on me.”

“What’s in it for you, then?”

“Fun,” Avon answered simply, keeping his face angled away from the security camera.

The caller snorted. “Fun? Some Alpha you are!”

“And you? A delta thief, I’m guessing? Why are you doing something as foolhardy as trying to break into a _CIFeR_ Pride system and attempting to enlist the help of one of _CIFeR_ ’s own technicians?”

“’s supposed to be the most sophisticated security system on the market, isn’t it?”

“ _One_ of them, certainly. What of it?” Avon had no illusions about the quality of _CIFeR_ ’s work – the Federation’s Central Banking System overshadowed it effortlessly, but apart from perhaps Central Control, no system was more secure than the FeCBS’s. Those two systems _were_ unique.

“I can open any lock,” the thief declared. “I don’t like closed doors.”

“A challenge, then? All right, which system is it? What are you risking your freedom for?”

“Promise you’re not going to turn me in?”

Avon rolled his eyes. If _he_ ’d been in the thief’s place, he wouldn’t have taken any words for reassurance. He probably wouldn’t have had the stupidity – or the gall – to call up tech support in the first place. It wasn’t a good idea to rely on other people in these ventures. “All right, if it makes you happy. I promise.”

“That’s good, then!” The thief sounded way too chipper. “It’s the archive. I just want to have a quick look.”

“The forbidden archive?” Avon was, admittedly, surprised. He had called up the system/client overview earlier and had had a quick look at the Pride, as few as there were. He had expected some of the rich homesteads at the edge of town, an ample loot for any thief who managed to get into them, not the Federation archive containing objects and documents too dangerous (or controversial) to be released to the public but too important to destroy. Officially, the archive didn’t even exist, but it was common knowledge within security circles – and a whispered rumour throughout the dome.   

“I don’t like closed doors,” the thief repeated, sounding petulant. “I’m not here for the stuff behind the door, though money’s nice. But I’d rather have a go at this door without worrying about laser traps, guard dogs and self-shooting rifles, at least for a first go. I’m not suicidal or stupid, am I?”

_Suicidal?_ Perhaps not, but certainly something else. “All right, delta thief. There will be security cameras, then, probably a motion sensor and infrared.”

“I know. Let me worry about those.” The smirk was back in the thief’s voice. “This isn’t the first building I’m breaking into, you know?”

“I didn’t imagine it would be,” Avon shot back. “You might regret not sticking to pick-pocketing before long.”

 “Yeah? How come someone as crooked as you got stuck in tech support?”

To his own astonishment, Avon found himself telling the truth. “The project I was working on is failing. My… _superiors_ didn’t like to hear that.”

“Was a surprise for you, that, eh? Glad I’m my own man, anyways. Well, let’s get on with it.”

Avon forcefully wrenched himself away from dreams of freedom, wishing he were standing outside the archive now, doing the work himself. He _knew_ he could dismantle Pride – it was one of the systems he had helped design, after all – but there was a thrill in being fully in charge of his own actions, in doing things just for the hell of it, and for a moment, he would have traded places with the delta without a second’s hesitation. “Of course. Open the panelling like you did last night – what tools do you have?”

“I’ve got everything, Avon, me mate,” the thief said smugly, though he sounded again as though he were speaking around his own tongue stuck between his teeth. Possibly he was. A distant clatter – the panelling coming away. “The colour combination, wasn’t it? That’s how you figured it out.”

Avon nodded to himself. “Yes – you knew all along, of course. A very ingenious pause.”

“Hm, you’re not too dense yourself. I’ll have to be careful around you, Kerr Avon.”

“I would advise you to be,” Avon said with a low growl. He knew the thief was well aware that the name gave him a bargaining chip Avon didn’t have. Yes, he could call security down on the thief now, but if he let the delta walk away, there was nothing stopping him from reporting on Avon. It had been foolish, giving out his name – but then, he had still thought he was dealing with a confused client, not a clever thief when he had done it. On the other hand, without the bargaining chip of Avon’s name, who knew whether the thief would have trusted him, and that really would have been a shame.  

“If I pull the wrong wire, this whole thing is going to go off, isn’t it?”

“Of course. Don’t touch the wires.”

“Frequency manipulator?”

“Wait!” Avon inhaled deeply, forcing himself not to hold his breath.

Silence.

No alarm cut through the voicelink, so the thief hadn’t done anything yet. Not his first lock, no, but he clearly had no experience with _CIFeR_ ’s triple encoding.

The thief’s breath huffed through the link. “I haven’t touched anything.”

“I’d have heard it if you had,” Avon commented dryly. “You have to cut the connection to the computer system first, or alarms are going to go off over here before you even notice.”

“I don’t see any- Oh.”

“Listen to me very carefully. You are working on the third most complex security system in the known galaxy. Appearances will be deceiving.”

The thief snorted. “Just when I was thinking you weren’t a typical Alpha.”

“Stupidity is not linked or limited to grade! Do you want my help opening this door or not?”

“I do! Don’t fancy getting a lecture at the same time, do I!?”

 “If you want to open that lock without setting off the alarm, you will have to listen now because once you start working, you will have little more than a minute to get through all the steps. It’s the archive’s lock, so it probably isn’t booby-trapped, but do you really want to run that risk?”

“Go on, I’m listening.”

“The countdown starts once you cut the computer linkup – it’s a failsafe, designed to detect technical faults. You’ll have to circumvent the locking mechanism and restore the computer linkup inside of those sixty seconds.”

The thief hummed, and something rustled. “Sixty seconds, eh?”

“Can you do it?”

“Anything special I ought to know about the lock? Just a straightforward binary biometric translation, yeah?” The thief tapped out a quick pattern by knocking what was presumably one of his probes or lockpicks or sensors against the microphone of the voicelink device. “Easy. Be able to decode that with my tools.”

Avon blinked. He wouldn’t have described the lock’s coding as _straightforward_ or _easy_ , but then most thieves wouldn’t even have recognised the encoding mechanism, let alone be able to pick out the pattern just by listening to the electronic hum. “It is binary biometric translation, yes.”

Of course the smugness was immediately back. “Told you I could open any lock.”

“Can you do it in sixty seconds _and_ fool the computer into thinking nothing touched the lock?”   

“Avon!” The thief had the gall to sound almost affronted. “Of _course_ I can!”

“Then prove it and stop talking.”

“I like talking while I work.”

“Well, I don’t.”

“You’re not working, are you? It’s me doing all the work.”

Ah, yes, he was supposed to be working. Avon looked at the callboard, and noticed three waiting calls. “Damn!”

A clatter – the thief, the moron, had dropped his tools. “What!?” he hissed, panicked note in his voice. 

“I need to field other calls.”

 “Go on, then. I’ll call you back.”

“Don’t touch _anything_.”

“I’ll be inside before you’re done.”

“Don’t be a fool! I have only dismantled the system twice, and never when it was fully linked up; it might behave differently when it’s live. If you run into a problem, you’ll need me!”

“Very sure of yourself, are you?”

Avon fought down the urge to hang up on the thief. “Don’t imagine I’d care if you get arrested out of your own stupidity.”

“But you’ll keep that from happening to safe your own skin, eh? And for _fun_.”

Avon glared at the calling bank, wishing he could scowl at the thief instead. “I need to go.”

“Speak to you soon.”

Avon cut the connection, indicating the problem as resolved to unlock the system, and connected the next call. It was the expected cutting Alpha-diction diatribe about being made to wait, an alarm blaring loudly in the background, both of which grated on Avon’s nerves. _Not much longer_ , he swore to himself. A week at most, then he would be out of tech support or find himself another job even if it meant walking out on the Federation’s most prestigious computer science institute. He managed to talk the client through shutting down the system and recovering his passcode, not receiving or expecting as much as a _thank you_ for his services. The other calls, thankfully, he could redistribute to the local contacts – both were hardware failures he could do nothing about from a distance.

Then, silence. Avon glanced at his clock. The irate caller had cost him more time than he’d expected, and he had thought the thief would have called back by now. If he had been connected to another night time service… Or even more probably, he had ignored Avon’s advice and had gone ahead with the lock and was on his way to a holding cell now.

Avon fought down a frustrated frown and the accompanying headache, and took the next call that came in with level professionalism.

“Avon! Could have told me I had time to get a drink!”

It was the thief – still at liberty, then. His sense of timing was impeccable. Perhaps he really could do what he claimed.

“Believe me, I would have preferred not to take these calls.”

“You’d think people who owned them didn’t have problems with locks.”

Avon sighed. “As I said, stupidity is not limited to the lower classes.”

“Ready, then?”

“Are you?”

“‘Course.”

Avon would have sworn he could _hear_ the thief smirking. “Then I hope for your sake you don’t have a habit of overestimating your abilities.”

“I try not to,” the thief said, and Avon could hear a probe humming to life. “I’ll cut the computer linkage… now!”

Despite his words, the thief didn’t actually talk at all during the next tense seconds; all Avon had as an indicator of his work were the faint sounds of the probes – the whirr of the decoder – and he was cutting it fine, too fine – “Delta!”

“Shut up, Avon!” There was definite tension in the thief’s voice now, and Avon felt like he himself might burst with it. He rubbed his hand, resisting the urge to do _something_ when he knew there was nothing he could do. Surely sixty seconds would be over any moment now –

“There!” The satisfying hiss of a door opening cut through the voicelink, and the thief laughed. “I did it!”

Avon released a breath with a smile despite himself. “Well done!”

“Couldn’t have done it without you.” There was some shuffling – the thief packing away his tools. “Right, I’ll have a quick look around. I ought to invite you to celebrate, but I’m unlikely to find any money in there.”

 “I don’t think it would be a good idea for a security expert to be seen with a thief, do you?”

“Sounds like the start of a long and profitable friendship to me.”

“There won’t be much profit if you persist in opening doors for the _challenge_.”

“Or you in helping thieves for _fun_. You’re about as much a model citizen as I am, Kerr Avon.”

“You ought to get on with it before you are caught because someone spots you lingering by the door.”

“Yes. The exciting bit is over anyway. I’m sure we’ll run into each other again.”

Avon snorted. It was an incredibly unlikely assumption. The population in this dome alone was unimaginable, and the chance of him running into a delta thief was miniscule. The grade separation wasn’t total, but Avon could hardly afford being seen in the Delta sections.

The thief breathed a light chuckle, still not cutting the connection. “You’re wasting your time in tech support,” he declared.

Avon’s own finger was hovering over the button to end the call, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it yet. He didn’t relish the prospect of returning to the incredible dullness of routine. His heart was still thudding with the elation of having broken into the forbidden archives, even if he wasn’t there to enjoy it. “Your chosen profession doesn’t seem very appealing.”

“’s not a profession – it’s a vocation!”

“I’m sure.”  

“I’ll be the best thief in the known galaxy, you’ll see.”

“I hope for your own sake that your luck doesn’t run out.”

“We’re on good terms, my luck and I,” the thief responded good-naturedly. “But, good luck to you, too, eh?” And with that, the connection cut out, leaving Avon sitting again in the silent office.

  

Barely two years later, Avon lay on his side on a cot in a draughty holding cell, his back turned towards the wall. He had chosen the cot in the far corner, but that offered no escape from the constant bright illumination that was giving him a headache. He had tried shielding his eyes with his arm before deciding that it wasn’t worth mustering up the energy. Instead, he kept his eyes closed and his face turned away from the overhead lamps and wondered if he would ever feel warm again, or be able to sleep properly again. A suppressant or other was humming in his system, making his limps laden and sluggish, and his mind, alert as ever, felt _trapped_. At least by pretending to be asleep he had avoided the attention of the other unsavoury inmates of the cell.

“Kerr Avon”, a voice cut through his thoughts, “The second-best when it comes to computers in the Federated worlds, and an embezzler. Told you it was a vocation.”

Something in the voice niggled at his memory, or Avon might have ignored its owner. That, and the fact that he had been addressed by his name. The Federation torturers had the habit of reducing their prisoners to numbers or hastily spat last names, and the last he had heard his full name spoken aloud had been during his trial – certainly none of the other prisoners ought to know it, or anything of him. He didn’t think his trial had been worth a viscast, much less one to be screened in a prison compound.

He blinked open his eyes, and came face to face with a young man stretched out on the cot opposite, head resting on one hand and a smirk curling his lips. He certainly seemed to have more energy than Avon, who couldn’t even remember when he had last felt rested. “Who are you?”

The man stuck out his free hand. “Vila Restal. Delta thief by vocation.”

Avon stared at the hand without taking it, and suddenly the memory of the voice slid into place. “You!”

Vila withdrew his hand with a careless shrug. “Ah, I was beginning to think they’d wiped your memory.” His smirk broadened. “Did tell you we’d run into each other again, didn’t I?”

Avon pushed himself upright so he was sitting sideways on the cot. He had never liked people staring down at him, not as long as he had the chance to do something about it. “So your luck _did_ run out in the end.”

“Just a temporary set-back.”

“I wouldn’t call being sentenced to a lifetime on Cygnus Alpha a _temporary set-back_.”

“Well, I don’t plan on getting stuck there. Do you?”

There was really nothing Avon could reply to that. Of course ending up on some prison planet hadn’t been his first choice, but there was hardly any point in dwelling on could-have-beens. He would have to find a way to adapt.

“What went wrong, anyway?” Vila asked.

“I used your ill-advised method and relied on other people,” Avon said and pushed himself off the cot to go for a walk around the holding cell, effectively ending the conversation. He could feel Vila’s eyes on him all the way to the other end of the room, but when he turned the corner, the thief was happily chatting to another inmate.

Months later, coming face to face with Vila again on the _Liberator_ ’s flight deck, Avon wondered whether he was cursed to be forever persecuted by a delta thief he knew to be cleverer and more audacious than Vila let on – or blessed.     


End file.
